In the Netherlands, the 2010 Crisis and Recovery Act aims at speeding up decisionmaking
on a wide variety of activities, hoping that after the financial and economic
crisis has passed, development projects can immediately be carried out without any
delay caused by legal procedures in court or elsewhere. The Act meets great
criticism for many reasons: it allegedly curtails citizen's procedural rights because it
focuses almost exclusively on environmental standards as "obstructing" standards
that need to be removed, and it infringes international and European Union law. In
this note, the legal critique on the Act is analysed. The conclusion is that the sense
of urgency surrounding the design of legal measures to address the economic crisis
enables the legislature to implement innovations and long-time pending amendments
to existing legislation. Most issues have however not been fully or properly
considered. Many legal questions will arise when implementing the Act, which will
retard rather than expedite projects. It is difficult to predict whether the positive
effects of the Crisis and Recovery Act would outweigh the negative aspects. Much
depends on the manner in which the authorities will actually apply the Act. Should
they implement the Act to its full potential, the effect of the Act in sum will be
negative. In that case, the Act may help the economy to recover, but it will bring
about a crisis in the legal system. It will, in all probability, also not contribute to sustainable development.